


i’ll tell you the truth but never goodbye

by myillusionsgone



Series: said, "i'm fine," but it wasn't true [5]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Best Friends, CANON CAN FIGHT ME, F/M, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, two underrated girls being best friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23376727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myillusionsgone/pseuds/myillusionsgone
Summary: Forget-me-nots, camellias, carnations: a summer and its trials. — Sherry & Lyon
Relationships: Lyon Vastia & Yuuka Suzuki, Sherry Blendy & Jenny Realight, Sherry Blendy/Lyon Vastia
Series: said, "i'm fine," but it wasn't true [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623238
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. your eyes so green (and i know for me it’s always you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [woopsforgotadam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woopsforgotadam/gifts).



> I still live! And I finally have something to post!

Sherry was alone the first time it happened, when she twirled away from the marionette she had crafted from wood and mud, reaching out with her free hand to pull another doll out of the stone. Then, she coughed and reality fell apart around her. She tripped, fell to her knees and heard the fabric of her tights tear. This was not the problem, however. The problem was the terrible,  _ terrible  _ cough that shook her, that had her fearing for her life until she was spitting out blood and flowers.

This could not be.

Because she was not in love with anyone (not even the one she had promised to marry). This was  _ absolutely impossible _ . Because no one in her family had ever been afflicted by the curse. This — this had to be a fluke, she probably had been hit by the plant mage she had thought a bit ago after all and was now paying the price for it.

Yes, it had to be like this, she decided as she scooped up the flowers and threw them into the nearby creek, feeling nothing as she watched the petals dance away. Then, she grabbed her water bottle and emptied before heading back into town, determined to forget the entire incident, to write it off as something that had never happened.

Only that three weeks later, it happened again, and this time, she was not alone.

Lucky as she had been the time before, she was not allowed to be lucky twice in a row. She was out shopping with Jenny, chatting and laughing, when it knocked her off her feet. This time, it was so much worse than it had been on the training grounds. There was no air in her lungs, there was only the taste of blood and  _ rot _ that was forcing its way out of her.

“Sherry!” Jenny shrieked as the Marionette mage lost her balance, as she would have slammed to the ground face first if it was not for the steel grip her friend had on her upper arm. “Are you okay?”

Honestly, this was an  _ excellent _ question, Sherry mused as she clung to the blonde's arm, wheezing and fighting for breath as she was gently lowered towards the ground, only to spit out blood and flowers. Again. From the corner of the eye, she saw how understanding mingled with the worry on Jenny's face and if she had had the breath for it, Sherry would have argued against it, would have told her that she was wrong, that this was not the Flower Curse but rather a very persistent spell that had been cast on her.

“Fine,” she wheezed as her fingers clawed into her skirt. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire, and she almost would have cried. This hurt, hurt so badly, and there was nothing she could focus on to tune it out. “I am  _ fine _ .”

Jenny looked at her nonplussed as she knelt down on the ground next to her, handing her tissues and a water bottle. “You don’t  _ look _ fine at all, chère,” she said dryly as she gently wiped away blood from the corners of Sherry’s mouth. “It's okay, thousands of people fall to the curse.”

“ _ Is not, _ ” Sherry argued weakly as she opened the bottle and took a long sip, washing down metallic red and sweet foulness alike. The pain in her throat subsided, just a little, and as she no longer had to cough and choke on air and petals alike, she could speak freely. “It  **cannot** be the curse, Jen,” she said and as if it was punishment for her denial, she doubled over in pain as she coughed  _ again _ , spitting out tiny blue flowers as opposed to the larger white petals. “There has never been a case of it in my family,” she bit out, her nails digging into her own flesh as she forced herself to go on, to keep talking although it was the  _ last _ thing her body allowed.

But Sherry had always been stubborn, had always known how to dig her heels into the earth and stand her ground. She lost herself in details as she continued to speak, citing example upon example of people in her family who had never fallen victim to the curse, how there was not a single recorded instance of anyone related to her coughing up two kinds of crimson. 

And Jenny, bless her soul, let her talk, only squeezed her shoulder when now and then another terrible cough had her trembling. Still, in retrospective, it might have been smarter to say that it could not be the curse because she was not in love with anyone, because her best friend looked at her as if she had just said the dumbest thing the blonde had ever heard. Maybe it was.

Rolling her eyes, Jenny helped her stand and did not let go of her as she took an unsteady step. “I don't think it would be wise to continue our stroll,” she said calmly, but it was the same tone a nurse would use when she was about to insist that the patient would rest. “Let’s get you home.”

Recognising a lost cause when she saw it, Sherry did not argue and let the other steer her through the maze of hidden streets and tucked-away alleyways that usually offered a variety of smaller, less crowded stores. Their afternoons spent strolling through this quieter part of town were so often a welcome break from the busy lives they led, but Sherry did not feel particularly relaxed now as her mind was racing, trying to work out what was happening to her, why it was happening to her now.

‘‘It will be all right,’’ Jenny muttered as they passed from one quarter into the next, taking detours to avoid the prying eyes that would await them in the main street. Both of them — but especially Jenny, the reigning Miss Fiore — were bound to catch attention, and while Sherry would not have minded this as fame was the price she had to pay for being mage of a prestigious guild, she would mind to be seen as she was now —— pale as a ghost, swaying and . . .  **terrified** .

Sherry was not often afraid. She  _ did _ recognise the usefulness of fear and other instincts, but she seldom allowed herself to be ruled by them. If her magic was anything, it was the manifestation of her need to have the upper hand, to be in control. But although she usually set her fear aside until it was time to face it, it was breaking down the door right now, demanded that she looked at it. And she — she was not ready. She was not even sure if she ever would be ready to face the facts, the facts that she was possibly dying of something more than one poet had called the  _ Beautiful Death _ .

Those were the poets she would readily accuse of glossing over reality in a dangerous way; as if any death could be beautiful or romantic. As if death was easier for those left behind just because the cause of it had been pretty flowers as opposed to a knife.

(In their world, there was no difference between flowers and knives.)

A second attack shook her to the bone at the bottom of the stairs that led up to her apartment; for a moment, she wondered if this was it, if she would not have to ponder over the implications of the flowers — but then she spat out petals into the tissue Jenny was offering and she stilled against her friend's side, her eyes almost wells of sorrow.

Clinging to Jenny’s arm as she was all but lifted by her friend, Sherry groaned. “Jen,” she forced out, but did not know to continue then. What was she supposed to say? That she was afraid? That she did not want any of this? That she did not want to die? There were things that went without saying, and this was one of them. The fear in her heart knew neither name nor mercy; it would eat at her heart until it gave out.

Her feet did not touch the stairs as she was carried to the door of her apartment, of her home that did not feel much like a sanctuary. But — could anything promise safety, right now? Was there anything she would dare to believe when it said that it did not wish to bring her harm? How could she when her own heart was an enemy?

Tenderness was not a word Sherry would usually link to Jenny — the other was a bright light that shone too strongly to be gentle, to be soft. Cold passion ran in her friend's veins, paired with a scalpel-like mind and ambition to match. And yet, she could only call the look in Jenny's eyes tender as she helped Sherry to lay down on her bed, two pillows below her head. It felt more like being home than anything had since her parents had died, but this was a thought Sherry kept to herself.

(For almost everyone she knew, family was a loaded word.)

Laying down next to her, Jenny shifted closer and wrapped her arm around Sherry's waist as her forehead pressed against the Marionette mage's shoulder. “Chère,” she said quietly, calmly — her soft voice a comfort, a balm for Sherry's troubled thoughts. “We both know that you aren't in love with Ren — don't argue, you know I'm right — so could it be that you're in love with Lyon?” she asked, though it did not quite sound like a question.

_ Lyon _ . A name she had not thought in a while, a name that belonged to a face she had avoided as of late. A name Jenny had just said with such certainty that for a moment, Sherry almost agreed. But it could not be, right? She had been in love with Lyon when she had been young, sure, but she had grown out of this love before anything had happened.

(She had not choked on flowers when she had been sixteen, seventeen, she meant.)

She wiggled until she was free from Jenny's grasp and sighed before she pressed a bloody hand against her brow. She was at a loss, did not know what to say, if there even was something she could say. She wanted to say that she was grateful (so very grateful) for the others calm, wanted to say that she was sorry (so very sorry) for making Jenny worry about her. 

“Maybe,” she said quietly. “Maybe I am.”

She had not spoken with Lyon beyond the simple exchange of empty pleasantries in three months, she realised. They had . . . drifted into different directions, ever since the assignment regarding the Oracion Seis, ever since his brother had disappeared. This was how it sometimes was, people who had been close at one point were not guaranteed to stay close forever. It was natural, there was no one to blame.

And yet, her heart ached as she thought of him and the quiet forest in his eyes, and the rotten sweetness of blood and flowers drowned out everything around her as she admitted to herself that  _ gods, _ Jenny had been right. There was no maybe to this, it was fact, not possibility. Of course it was.


	2. my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

Lyon remembered well what he had felt when he had seen blood and flowers sprout from his teacher's mouth, when he had realised that she was not invulnerable, that she was fragile in her own way. He remembered thinking that this was unfair of her, that she was dying from something that would take her before he could even  _ hope _ to catch up to her.

He also recalled the moment when the cold heart inside his chest had sighed as he had looked upon his then-teammate, upon his current  _ nothing _ . He had let Sherry walk away, and he was paying the price for it now. 

He was not as oblivious as some might say. He knew that there had been summers when she had looked at him with the same fondness that was now poison in his lungs. Guilt was a knife in his heart as he lay awake and stared at the ceiling, wondering if she had thrown up flowers for him, if he had made her suffer like this. Some nights, he was almost certain that she had and then, he wondered what flowers it might have been. He doubted that it had been roses, that would be too cliché for Sherry. Other nights, he could convince himself that it had just been a crush, that it had not been something to invite the curse into her lungs. 

In those nights, he hoped that he had never doomed her like this; the other ways in which he had doomed her were bad enough, after all. But he could never be certain. They were not talking, and even if they were, he would not know how to ask. These things were private, he had learnt that early on. These things were not to be discussed lightly. And he would not know what to say if she asked why he cared so suddenly.

It was difficult enough to answer Yuuka's questions, to let him pry. And right now, the wave mage was his best friend, was the only one he could talk with about this. It would have been Sherry. It should still be Sherry, he guessed whenever he wiped blood of his mouth, but if he could still talk to her, he likely would not be throwing up carnations to begin with. Carnations had been his mother's favourite flower, and he tried very hard not to think about it.

When it had first started, a few months ago, the carnations had been purple, but they had grown lighter and lighter with every passing week and now, they were so pale they might just as well be white. It had caught him entirely off-guard, in the middle of an assignment, but that had just been fitting — Sherry had always known to catch him on his wrong foot as well.

For almost five years now, he had missed her. She had not been the same after Nirvana had dug its claws into her soul, had pulled away from everyone and he had thought that she needed space. He had not expected her to sneak out of his life.

He saw her more frequently now, she was reading in the guild's library nowadays, but despite what Yuuka said, Lyon could hardly just walk up to her and start up a conversation as if he had not left her alone with her pain and fear.

He could apologise, but where would he even start?  _ I am sorry for never visiting you when you were confined to a hospital room you hated. I didn't visit you because I was a coward. I am sorry for being a terrible friend, and now I am dying because of it _ . 

But (and he did not need Yuuka to point it out) this would sound a lot like he was blaming her when the only one he should be blaming was he. He was the one who had invited the curse in — although this had never been something where he had wanted to follow in his teacher's footsteps.

The sudden sound of a book being snapped shut right next to his ear ripped him out of his thoughts, and he frowned as he looked at Yuuka. “This,” he started as he placed a bookmark (an old train ticket) between the pages of his own book, “was  _ entirely _ unnecessary.”

“Not more unnecessary than you staring down Sherry again,” his friend replied dryly as he sat down on the other side of the table, thus blocking his view. “Staring isn't gonna help you.”

The reminder was  _ not needed _ , but this was a discussion they had many times before. Yuuka thought that the best approach was to talk to Sherry, to apologise and . . . clear the air between them whereas Lyon clung to the belief that this would only put unnecessary pressure on her. She was not to blame for his heart's decisions, and he would rather die than tell her about this. She had loved him, once. He had been too blind to realise, too caught up in his own problems. He could not ask of her to love him again.

Grabbing his tea cup and swallowing down the medicine he had been taking for months yet to buy himself time, to postpone the inevitable, he sighed. “We have been over this, Yuuka,  _ several times _ ,” he said firmly as he leaned to the side and almost had to grin; Sherry was standing on the ladder and arguing with one of his less-liked guild mates, gesturing vaguely towards the corner of children's books the guild owned for reasons beyond him.

Rolling his eyes, Yuuka snapped his fingers at him. “You are an  _ idiot _ , Vastia,” he groaned. “Biggest idiot I've ever met. It's not like  _ your _ approach is doing you any good either.”

This was another thing they had been arguing about, recently. (Lyon could not remember another time he had argued with Yuuka this often.) His newly assumed role as Lyon's Voice of Reason meant that Yuuka took the time to critisise  _ many _ of his ideas — but  **especially** the one where Lyon was trying to lose his heart to someone else as moving on had proven to be an impossible feat so far. Whether asked for his opinion or not, Yuuka was quick to point out that it did not matter who Lyon went on dates with since as long as he compared them, in one way or another, to the marionette mage that was out of his reach, he would never make any progress.

“You cannot make me go to Sherry and make her feel responsible for this — it’s my fault, not hers,” Lyon snapped, his eyes leaving the woman to glare at his best friend. They had been over it, but had found himself at an impasse as Yuuka insisted that if it came to the worst and Sherry found out when it was too late, she would feel guilty as well and that therefore, there was no neat solution for the current dilemma.

Crossing his arms in exasperation, Yuuka sighed deeply. “Your game of avoidance is gonna end anyway,” he said and had Lyon not known him for almost ten years now, he would have missed the smugness. “A little bird told me that Ooba is sending the two of you on a quest.  _ Together _ .”

“Fuck.” Lyon leaned to the other side to catch sight of Sherry as she talked to Jura, the wizard saint's face almost solemn as he slowly shook his head. He missed  _ working with Sherry _ almost as much as he missed her in general. They had been a good team for as long as they had worked together, but she had an uncanny way of coaxing out more than he wanted to say whenever they were talking, just by listening. This had made him uneasy when they had been teenagers and he had said more about Ur than he had wanted to. It worried him  _ deeply _ now, because he knew that it would only take the right words, the right questions and he would come undone.

Yuuka shrugged as he turned his head to look at Sherry. “I don't know,” he said quietly. “ _ Your _ worst case scenario may happen, but have you considered that maybe, she misses you too? You guys  _ were _ pretty close.”

It was a thought Lyon rarely entertained. He had not been a good friend to her, even before Nirvana had happened, but he had been  _ deplorable _ afterwards when he had not known what to do, how to act. It did not help that he had been a thing with too many teeth, too many sharp edges when he had been younger and he had cut every hand that had ever tried to hold him, including hers.

Lyon shook his head as he got up; it was time to have some tea with his guild master and to talk her out of this plan. “She’s smarter than to miss me,” he said with a shrug.


	3. who would stay? (you could stay)

_Sherry—_

_remember how I said I would abstain from talking about it with anyone? My most sincere apologies, but I was on a job with Eve and just had to pick his brain over this. He promised not to share any of what we discussed with anyone, and considering that I am footing his espresso bill for the next two years in exchange, his word is worth more than gold._

_Both of us are somewhat out of our depth as neither of us has ever even dabbled in healing magic, but after what has happened last time you visited, I could not do_ **_nothing_ ** _. I’m not letting you die a death straight out of some fucked up fairytale, and Eve is not big on letting people die either._

 _As I’ve told you, it’s looking bad. Time_ **_is_ ** _of the essence, so we’ve been looking into fast-acting solutions. As you and I already thought, using ice magic to kill the flowers is a non-starter; Eve let me talk for fifteen seconds before he stopped me. If you need help to imagine his face, he looked like I did when I checked your lungs. So yeah: horrified._

 _But! Eve had a couple interesting approaches. He agrees that machine takeover magic would probably be the most radical solution, but sadly, that takes_ **_years_ ** _to master to the point where you can constantly maintain a lung made of steel, and we are kinda on a schedule here. I wish, I truly wish the human body was as easy to fix as a machine. I wish I could do more to help than freak out whenever I look at the . . . progress or lie to Master Bob about where the sudden interest in books about medicine comes from, so please tell me if there’s_ **_anything_ ** _I can do for you._

_There was one question Eve did ask that I could not answer: what about having an open, honest conversation with Lyon is so terrifying that you were talking about all the radical ideas that no healer worth their oath would ever consider._

_Love, Jenny_

The letter was burning a hole into Sherry’s pocket as she sat opposite of Lyon in a much too small compartment. Jenny had the almost annoying habit of being right often, and to never be graceful about telling others that she was right and they were wrong. It was no surprise that the blonde was insisting on her admittedly justified belief that the easiest and least dangerous solution to Sherry’s plight would be to be an adult about this and talk to Lyon. Jenny had abstained from calling her a coward, but she did not have to be that blunt, the message had been received already.

Jura . . . Jura had been kinder about it, probably because Jura did not know how to be sharp outside of battle. She had not had to tell him, he had handed her a cup of tea and told her he knew, had gently drawn circles on her back as she had almost coughed out her lungs. Out of all the people in her guild who could have found out, he was arguably the best and the worst, simultaneously. The best because no one would question the excuses he made for her. The best because he seemed to have a sheer inexhaustible stock of tea, specifically composed to ease her illness, and because it was not out of character for him to hand her a thermos full of tea around noon every day.

(No one in the guild could brew tea the way he did, and she had been trying for **years**.)

Still, even with the thermos sitting in her bag, she hated this. She hated that she was making Jenny worry and bribe Eve with espresso, she hated that she made Jura lie for her, she hated that she was making such a mess out of something that should have been smooth sailing. She had had a plan, had decided that she would make a dignified exit, only to stumble back into love with someone who could not even look at her anymore.

*

The silence was painful, Lyon mused as he stared out of the window, doing his best to avoid Sherry’s wandering gaze. One look, one pointed question — and he would spill over. He had to be guarded lest he wanted that she deduced what was happening within him; he had once picked her as his second-in-command because she was good at spotting anything that was wrong, and now he was almost praying that he could escape her scrutiny.

‘‘You have been absent from the guild a lot, lately.’’ Her voice was calm, perfectly even. There was not much of an inflection that could have given away what the **point** of the statement was, but if he would not know what concern looked like when she wore it, he could almost have fooled himself into thinking that she was . . . worried. About him. After so many years.

Turning his head to look at her shoulder, he nodded. ‘‘I have been busy with independent research,’’ he said. It was not _quite_ a lie, but it was farther from the truth than he was comfortable with. To lie to Sherry had always been reserved for emergencies only, had been supposed to be a way for him to navigate her stubbornness to trick her into doing what was safest.

Sherry smiled as she propped up her chin against her fist, but the smile looked _tired_. ‘‘You can tell me all you want about your research when we go back home,’’ she suggested as her free hand drew lines (or runes?) onto the small table that separated them.

‘‘ _If_ we go back home,’’ he replied gloomily before he could get a hold on himself. **Wonderful** , now he was spewing pessimistic nonsense at her. It was as if Gray was possessing him, but that was a line of thought he refused to follow for even a second. Because only ghosts could haunt him like this, and _Gray was not dead_.

Her smile brightened as she rolled her eyes at him, and yet — something inside his chest soared higher than it should be allowed, higher than it had flown in a long time. ‘‘We **will** be all right,’’ she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘‘I will, uh, sleep.’’

He nodded, allowing himself a faint smile. ‘‘I’ll wake you when we get there,’’ he promised and sat back, following his own thoughts — how this was _almost_ like before Nirvana, how this felt familiar in the most heartbreaking way — as he watched her shift in her seat before she had found a position that let her drift into her slumber. He had missed this, more than words could say. He had missed the soft rustle of his cloak as he slipped out of it, as he carefully used it to cover Sherry. Yuuka had been right; when it came to Sherry, Lyon was a certified softie.

Sitting back down, he reached into his bag for his book. It was a long way to their destination.

*

Sherry had woken up feeling warmer than she would have expected, but as soon as they had gotten off the train and had stepped out into the city they had been sent to, a bitter cold had seeped into her bones. This was unusual, in an almost unsettling way. She had grown up in a town that had not been far from this city, and she had never felt cold then. Perhaps, she thought as she shoved her hair under her hat, it was an emotional kind of cold she felt. Or it was another fucked up symptom, another thing she would have to deal with until the curse was no longer bothering her.

‘‘It’s a nice city,’’ she said where she would have let companionable silence reign, once. ‘’Very cute.’’

Lyon snorted as he shook his head. ‘‘There are nicer cities than this, but the snow is . . . picturesque,’’ he mumbled into his scarf. Translated into _normal people speech_ , it meant something along the lines of _I don’t agree with you, but I don’t care enough to fight over this_ , and she once more rolled her eyes at his back.

‘‘Our inn is that way,’’ she continued, pretending the interlude had never happened. ‘‘I do not know about you, but I need some proper food and then more sleep.’’

And it was too late to go meet the mayor about the details of their job; Ooba-sama had been vague at best when she had briefed them about this quest, had only told them the most basic details, reassuring them that they would receive a _proper_ briefing when they would speak to their employer. It was less than ideal, a lack of information meant that she could not properly prepare, and ever since the Nirvana Assignment, a lack of decent preparation made Sherry anxious. It had been close to six years now, but the thought still lingered: that for a council-assigned mission, it had been a far bigger mess than it should have been, given the council’s manpower **and** their wealth of knowledge. Maybe she was bitter about this whole thing, but who if not her was entitled to bitterness over this?

At her side, Lyon’s hand brushed against her suitcase. ‘‘Maybe I can scout the area a little tomorrow before we go to the briefing,’’ he suggested, and she had to wonder if this was how he always went about his missions, assuming that those who were with him just _knew_ that he was an early riser and that he was in the habit of wanting to get his own first impression before anyone told him about it. She knew, **obviously** , but others would be right to complain about bad communication.

‘‘It’s a good idea,’’ she agreed as her eyes kept searching the admittedly _picturesque_ scene that was stretching out in front of him for anything that would disturb the peace. ‘‘If I’m up, I’ll come along.’’

‘‘Don’t force yourself to wake up early, Sherry. I need you fit and alert.’’

*

Closing the door behind him, Lyon had to lean against it for a moment and take deep breaths. Faintly, he reminded all the times he had assured Yuuka that he would just avoid Sherry during the mission they were supposed to work on together and how it would all work like a charm because he was capable of some self-restraint.

Evidently, this was _not_ working out at all. The hand that had almost touched Sherry’s earlier still felt tingly and warm despite them having shared a meal in almost-no-longer-awkward silence before going up to their rooms. Biased as he was, he was faintly optimistic that by the time they returned back home, they would be able to have some small talk. A hope that should not feel as daring as it did; once, many mistakes ago, he had been sitting with Sherry at the fire, long after it had gone out, drawing lines into the ash and discussing everything that had gone unsaid during the day.

What had become of them . . . it was genuinely sad, and suddenly, Lyon was very glad that he had not managed to convince Yuuka and Tobi to volunteer for the quest and tagging along. While Yuuka knew how hopelessly gone Lyon was when it came to Sherry, Tobi still lived in a world where the head of his team was not acting like a schoolboy who was nursing his first _serious_ crush, and Lyon would rather like it if at least a few people retained some respect for him, considering how much time Yuuka had spent laughing at his face.

Only the soft beep from his lacriphone distracted him and in a moment of mad hope, he retrieved it from where he had tossed his jacket to the ground. As he should have expected, it was a message from Yuuka and not Sherry, asking him if he wanted to grab a drink at the bar downstairs. _How is it going?_ the screen read, and the ice mage groaned.

‘‘Fuck you, Yuuka,’’ Lyon told the room that taunted him with its silence, reminding himself that Sherry would have to knock as she did not have his number.

Pushing himself up, he padded over to the little bathroom and splashed cold water into his face. ‘’You’re a certified idiot, Vastia,’’ he snapped as his reflection. ‘‘Just, for the love of all that’s holy, get your act together and act your age for a change.’’

He was almost completely certain that this had been the so-called subtext of Yuuka’s text, and maybe it was something that had to be said. Hell, it was not as if Lyon knew how this was supposed to go.

*

Sherry wished she had slept more as she clung to her tea cup, bleary eyes scrutinising the mayor as he sat on the other side of the room, hands folded neatly in front of him. She had woken up three times, her throat itching before she had vomited flowers. It had been difficult to get rid of the mess in a way that would _not_ draw the attention of the cleaners in the morning. The tea Jura had suggested was perhaps not the typical blend people used to manage the curse (though she was diligently drinking that one, too), but it was perhaps doing an even better job at masking her suffering as it did not have the telltale scent. Still, it did not make her any less tired.

Lyon was next to her, tapping his fingers against his legs. He was impatient, not nervous, and it was a sentiment she shared. From what they had been told so far, the job sounded rather straightforward, and frankly put: she did not care much about the _personal dimension_ this had for the mayor; if his one-time best friend did not want to be met with Lamia Scale’s finest, they should perhaps reconsider their stance on blackmailing the man.

 _Of course_ , there was always the possibility that they were being hired to clean up a messy breakup between two criminals, but this was hardly something the mayor would tell them. If there was something fishy about this job, their own investigation of the matter would reveal it — and Sherry had great faith in their ability to unveil the truth. With the way Lyon’s forehead was in furrows and the corners of his mouth were turned down as he listened, she wondered how the mayor had ever been elected to a public office if he was that bad at reading a room.

‘‘—I _was_ wondering,’’ she started slowly, smoothly cutting the mayor off before he could go on yet another tangent about the importance of agriculture for his town, ‘‘if we could go take a look at the city before it is fully awake? I do like to have a general idea of the area when I start a job.’’

It was not _entirely_ true as she knew that Lyon had been scouting before the sun had been up in the sky, before she had woken up, but they were wasting daylight and she was eager to draw her own conclusions instead of listening to the mayor who would not tell them what they needed to know. 

Lyon nodded, his body losing some of its tension as he moved. ‘‘Exactly,’’ he agreed, quickly but not _hastily_ , ‘‘the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish.’’

* 

Sherry stalked ahead of him as they circled the house where the mayor had been dropping off the money for his blackmailer, the soft ground beneath their feet muffling the clickclack of her heels, and Lyon had to hide a smile. Her annoyance had rolled off her in heavy waves that had crashed against him when they had spoken to the mayor, but she was more relaxed now as she ran her hands over surfaces, searching for something that was out of place. She did not pay him much heed, lost in thought as she was, but this was all right. There was something about watching her work that was almost captivating. The woman he loved (and there was no point in lying about this, not to himself) was a knife: sharp, versatile and dangerous.

‘‘What did you think of the mayor?’’ she asked as she tapped her fingers against the abandoned house’s window, balancing on her toes as she peered inside. ‘‘I did not like him very much.’’

Lyon snorted as he shook his head. ‘‘You hardly ever like employers,’’ he muttered under his breath before he raised his voice. ‘‘I do agree with you; this feels fishy, but right now, I can’t tell where the stench is coming from.’’

‘‘Me neither,’’ she said and her face grew stormy before she turned towards him and grabbed his shoulder, dragging him down with her, just before an arrow hit the door he had been trying to open. _Definitely fishy_ . The mayor had assured him that no one knew he had asked for Lamia Scale’s aid so while they were certainly _known_ as mages were something akin to celebrities in Fiore, no one should feel _concerned_ enough to attack them without warning.

Crouched on the ground, he exhaled before he patted her leg and eased her grip on his shoulder. ‘‘My head thanks you,’’ he said quietly as he slammed down his hand to create a shield made of ice.

A glimmer of a smile ghosted across Sherry’s face as she adjusted her ever present gloves. ‘‘I saw the reflection, and I did not feel like taking risks,’’ she replied as she squeezed his shoulder gently before letting go of him. ‘‘Plus — your head _is_ the most attractive thing about you.’’

He laughed quietly, even as the foul sweetness threatened to rise within him, and threw a look at their attackers, a crowd of local criminals, from the looks of it. ‘‘You’re faster than me,’’ he said as she shifted next to him, her magic drumming so loud in her blood that it echoed in his ears. ‘‘And it is good manners for a gentleman to let the lady have the opening move.’’

Tresses of pink caressed his face as she threw back her head in laughter. ‘‘This is not a chess game, but the sentiment is appreciated, good sir,’’ she replied. ‘‘I’ll go first, then.’’

* 

To the surprise of hardly anyone who knew her and who knew that she had opinions about nearly everything, Sherry had her preferences when it came to locations for fights. For her magic to show its full potential, she needed things she could use to shape her dolls, her puppets, and traditionally, areas that were rich in stone and fallen trees were places that allowed her to show off her skill best. Doll Play, Marionette Magic was not made for neat, orderly places. It was made for the verge of ruin, was at its most powerful when its user was surrounded by rubble.

Similarly, although the very next day, Sherry would make adjustments to this list, she was in her element as her magic washed over the area to pull together a figure that would have been a match for Makarov Dreyar, revealing the proficiency he had with his Giant magic. Only — this was hardly a good time to think of a guild master who was missing, much like a large number of his mages. Especially given that one of the missing mages was Lyon’s brother.

‘‘Show-off,’’ Lyon muttered with a scoff as he dashed past her, quickly slipping into _his_ stance and casting _Ice Make: Dragon_ . As if this spell was **not** part of the repertoire he defaulted to whenever **he** wanted to show off.

It was quite difficult to remember that things were not as they had once been when he talked to her like he had then. It was even harder to only roll her eyes and _not_ make a comment, because despite how he had chosen to act, she **knew** that things were not the same despite what she might wish. And she knew better than to waste time on pointless thoughts during _a fight_ . Another time, she might rest her head on one of Jenny’s throw pillows and ask what it _meant_ that Lyon acted as if nothing had ever come between them when in truth, almost everything had come between them.

But there was something, an old truth no one else would ever understand: she felt _safe_ as she raised her dolls, as she twisted her fingers and sent them towards their foes. She felt safe because she knew (had known) Lyon well enough to predict his moves, his decisions. She did not have to question the intent behind his spells, she had seen his fighting style pan out so many times that it was an open book to her. And **yes** , no two fights were _the same_ , but they had fought together often enough for her to know which strategy it was he was employing.

Another deep breath, another reminder that this was not the hardest assignment they had ever been sent on, and Sherry turned her back towards Lyon and focused on her share of the fight.

*

It had been _years_ since the last time they had fought together, but although so much had changed, they fell back into their old rhythm as if it had only been days since they had started to go separate ways. His back was turned towards her, but he knew he did not have to watch out for friendly fire — as much of a sledgehammer Sherry’s magic could be, she wielded it with the same precision a surgeon would use a scalpel. She was a good one to have covering his back, even if they were not really talking these days. Maybe they could sit down with some coffee once they had sorted this mess out and figured things out.

Then — the sudden rockslide, set off by an errant spell, gave him pause and erased all thoughts of coffee and talks that might absolve him of the curse growing in his lungs. His hastily cast ice shields shattered as they collided with the avalanche, and dread did not bother to sneak up on Lyon, it **pounced** on him. He could not move out of the way fast enough, not over the slippery ground, not over the ice he himself had put there. The part of his brain that was not preparing itself for the impact mused about the irony of this. Lyon told the part in question to _kindly shut the fuck up_ , just as he let go off all his spells and was hit. Oh, that was his arm. Oh, that were his ribs. Oh, how funny that he felt and heard the fractures as they happened, but that he could not feel any pain yet.

Then, he was shoved forward by a rough, callous hand — out of the immediate danger zone and towards where Sherry had been last he had checked. Behind him, something was pulverised with a sickening crunch, and in a strange moment of absolute clarity, he knew that it could have been him instead of whatever doll Sherry had pulled from the ground to push him.

Vision fading as the pain set in, he looked at Sherry who was still on her feet, holding up the boulder with the ice dragon he had cast, her hair a banner fit for a revolution behind her. With gritted teeth and a scoff, she extended her arm even further, pushing the rock off its path and rendering it perfectly still. He did not think she had ever looked more radiant or more striking than right now as she was livid. With the sun’s rebirth behind her and the skies almost sharing the colour of her hair, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. And, as his vision darkened and his consciousness faded rapidly, his last thought was _whoops, I said that out loud_.

*

Sherry was pacing. That was to say: she was wearing down the floor in the waiting room and was on the best way to leave a path that would show where she had been, where she had walked until the day when the hospital was torn down to make place for something newer. While this was surely one way to leave a legacy, it was not the one she wanted to leave. Halting, she listened into the silence to see if she could hear anything aside from the tick-tock of a nearby clock, but no matter how much she focused, there was nothing for her to hear. No footsteps, no voices. Turning on her heel, she marched into another direction, rubbing ice cold fingers against her neck to startle herself awake.

Gently put, this was a disaster. But at least — no one had died. Her method of evacuation might have been rough and might have broken more bones than intended, but anyone who had been there had gotten away with a scare.

But the scare ran deep, bone deep. She shuddered involuntarily as she turned on her heel again and tried to count her breaths alongside her steps. She could not get the sickening crunch of the breaking bones out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Maybe if she had been faster. Maybe if she had focused less on Lyon and more on their surroundings, she could have stopped this from happening.

‘‘Miss Blendy.’’ The nurse appeared almost out of nowhere, armed with a tray; on it, the dreaded cotton swap, drenched in something that would sting, and a cup of tea. Thyme with honey, from the scent of it. ‘‘The doctor asks that you let me look after your arm and that you drink something before you go to the ward.’’

Her arm. Sherry blinked owlishly as her gaze followed the woman’s, only to come to rest on the gash that she had been ignoring. It was not deep and in her concern for Lyon, she had forgotten that she had been hurt, too. _But just a little bit_. ‘‘Of course,’’ she said numbly as she shoved up what was left of her sleeve and held out her arm. ‘‘So — is Lyon awake?’’

The nurse nodded as she jabbed the cotton ball at the gash and Sherry was not sure whether it was the sting of the tincture or the knowledge that Lyon was awake that commanded her legs to move. The iron grip on her upper arm was all that kept her rooted where she stood, and the other woman’s voice was understanding as she spoke. “He asked for you,” she said, “but he’ll still be here after you drink your tea and let me bandage your arm.”

*

Sherry swept into the room like a storm as the doctor was leaving, and a rare sense of peace filled Lyon’s veins, something that was both unconnected to and far more powerful than what he had been given for the pain. She looked weary and tired, and her clothes had suffered — but she was **fine** . _Unhappy_ , he corrected himself as he spotted the telltale darkness in her eyes, but unhurt. The look on her face was an expression he knew, was something he had seen enough times before to know what it meant. After what had happened, she had always reminded him of one of Jura’s origami figures — in theory, a simple, familiar thing, folded and changed beyond recognition.

“You scared me.” Her voice was flat, unnaturally so. “For a moment, I thought that this would be it.”

He nodded — because she was right, because he could have died — and looked down at his arm, at his ribcage. “My apologies,” he said as he reminded himself of the role he had chosen, though this was an old game for them. For as long as they had known each other (and they had known since they had been _teenagers_ , angry and reckless), they had always been two people, playing pretend. The roles he had played had changed; he was pretending not to be in love rather than to be fearless, but the same rules applied to both.

Her face scrunched up and she rolled her eyes as she leaned against the wall, arms crossed and her gaze directed at the trees outside his window. “No casualties,” she finally said quietly and relief washed over him. “Bunch of broken bones, but no one died. Rune Knights took over.”

“And yet you’re unhappy,” he replied. As far as _playing it cool_ went, this was probably a bad decision, but if he made a fool out of himself, he could blame it on the medicine, no matter how lucid he felt. It took more effort than it should to sit up and he almost would have slumped back down, but Sherry’s hand was there, helping him to sit as her other rearranged the pillows. Then, she moved back to the wall, her gaze lowered and her eyelashes curtains he could not see past.

Something — once so familiar, a ghost from easier days, unnameable now — crossed her face and then, she shook her head. “I do not want to do this now,” she said slowly before she halted and added, “I _cannot_ do this now.”

There were no good answers to this — it was true and it was not — but he could not push here. He could not hop over the line she had drawn and ask her since when she had cared about what she could not do. But he was not out of moves, was he? And even if he was, he was no king on a chessboard. Slowly, he held out his hand and after a moment, she accepted it. “It’s all right,” he said and for once, he believed himself. “I’m still here. I won’t leave. So, you take your time, and I’ll take mine and . . . we’ll both be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not the conclusion I wanted it to be so I will be back with that.


End file.
